Hated 'balls' on Newmarket roundabout to go if town council plans go ahead

The clock tower roundabout in construction in 2009. It was designed to resemble a clock face.

Newmarket councillors would like to see the town’s controversial ‘balls’ roundabout, which caused uproar when it was installed eight years ago, redesigned as part of a scheme to improve the area around the historic clock tower.

The row over the roundabout, which was commissioned and installed by Suffolk County Council having been designed by landscape architects to represent a clock face, resulted in a petition demanding its replacement and even saw the then Prime Minister David Cameron asked to intervene.

The 12 balls, which make up the roundabout, which was part of a £600,000 scheme to revamp the clock tower junction and was even nominated in a nationwide poll as one of the worst in the UK, were imported from China at a cost of nearly £1,000 each.

On Monday, Cllr Philippa Winter, chairman of the town council’s community services committee, said she wanted to see the clock tower area given a facelift so it would be as attractive as the Cambridge Road entrance to the town where last year a bronze statue of the Queen with a mare and foal was unveiled on Birdcage Walk.

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